The Flavor Bible
The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs
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3.9 • 80 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Widely hailed as one of the most influential cookbooks of all time, this is the timeless classic guide to culinary creativity and flavor exploration, based on the wisdom of the world's most innovative chefs
Eight years in the making, The Flavor Bible is a landmark book that has inspired the greatest creations of innovative cooks and chefs by serving as an indispensable guide to creativity and flavor affinities in today's kitchen.
Cuisine is undergoing a startling historic transformation: With the advent of the global availability of ingredients, dishes are no longer based on geography but on flavor. This radical shift calls for a new approach to cooking -- as well as a new genre of "cookbook" that serves not to document classic dishes via recipes, but to inspire the creation of new ones based on imaginative and harmonious flavor combinations.
The Flavor Bible is your guide to hundreds of ingredients along with the herbs, spices, and other seasonings that will allow you to coax the greatest possible flavor and pleasure from them. This astonishing reference distills the combined experience of dozens of America's most innovative culinarians, representing such celebrated and transformative restaurants as A Voce, Blue Hill, Café Atlántico, Chanterelle, Citronelle, Gramercy Tavern, the Herbfarm, Jardinière, Jean Georges, Le Bernardin, the Modern, and the Trellis. You'll learn to: explore the roles played by the four basic tastes -- salty, sour, bitter, and sweet -- and how to bring them into harmony; work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients by discovering which flavors have the strongest affinities for one another; brighten flavors through the use of acids -- from vinegars to citrus juices to herbs and spices such as Makrut lime and sumac; deepen or intensify flavors through layering specific ingredients and techniques; and balance the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of cooking and serving an extraordinary meal. Seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from the country's most respected chefs and pastry chefs, The Flavor Bible is an essential book for every kitchen library.
For more inspiration in the kitchen, look for The Vegetarian Flavor Bible andKitchen Creativity.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dornenberg and Page's follow up to their award-winning What to Drink With What You Eat certainly compliments its predecessor (part of the intent), but works equally well as a standalone reference for cooks of all skill levels. An alphabetical index of flavors and ingredients, the book allows readers to search complimentary combinations for a particular ingredient (over 70 flavors go well with chickpeas; over 100 are listed for oranges), emphasizing the classics (chives with eggs, nutmeg with cream, sardines and olive oil, etc.). Entries for ingredients such as chicken, beets and lamb span multiple pages and feature menu items from chefs such as Grant Achatz of Alinea, Alred Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill and Le Bernardin's Eric Ripert. Regional tastes are well-represented in broad entries for classic German and English flavors, as well as the more fine-tuned flavors of, for example, northern France or West Africa. The listings, combinations and short essays from various chefs on different matches are meant to inspire rather than dictate-there are, in fact, no recipes included. Instead, the volume is meant as a jumping-off point for those comfortable in the kitchen and eager to explore; though experienced cooks and chefs will benefit most, novices will find themselves referring to this handsome volume again and again as their confidence grows. Color photos.
Customer Reviews
Index / TOC
There is an "index", but not in the traditional sense. The full list of flavor entries is in the front section called "A-Z Listings", accessible through the Table of Contents. All links are clickable to take you directly to the appropriate page. Just bookmark that page, and it's a quick route to any flavor section.
Great text, unusable format
Don't buy this, get the hardcover edition. The text is inspiring for any professional or aspiring chef. It even played a role in recent Bocuse D'Oro preparations.
Unfortunately, however, they've left out the index. The book is intended to be used as an encyclopedia. You look up an ingredient in the index, flip to that ingredients page and find a list of friendly flavors.
Without the index one can not find individual ingredients. When one uses the search function to look up "crab", as I recently did, one gets a list of the dozens of pages on which the word appears. There is no way to tell which one (and only one) of those dozens of pages is the one dedicated to crab.
The omission of the index makes this unusable. Get the hard copy, carry it with you everywhere you shop or cook.
No index
Where is the index, I cannot search anything in this book. I own the hard copy and that is much better. This book is useless without being able to search ingredients. Instead it displays all the word "hits" in this book. We need an index or give me my money back.